


First Broom Lesson

by Plagg



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Gen, i mean she had to get her love for flying from somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plagg/pseuds/Plagg
Summary: Amanda wasn't too enthusiastic about learning about magic. It was just something her parents were forcing her to do. Her grandma didn't have good TV, magic lessons were boring, and Amanda just wanted to go play like a normal child.Until, that is, her grandmother introduced her to broom flying.





	First Broom Lesson

Usually, Amanda hated spending weekends with her grandmother.  Her parents had decided after her 5th birthday that it was time for Amanda to start learning magic, which was incredibly boring.  No more weekends with her big brother and his friends, no more basketball lessons, no more Dora the Explorer marathons…just magic, dance class, and Sesame Street.

Yuck.

Now, however, Amanda’s grandma had apparently gotten cable over the course of the week, which meant that Amanda could watch Blue’s Clues, and that was acceptable.  So, Saturday morning, Amanda took her plate of French toast sticks and syrup to the living room, clawing her way onto the over-stuffed sofa and snatching the remote.  She flicked through the channels until she landed on the familiar channel she loved so much.  Beside her, her grandmother’s familiar bobbed its head and clucked noisily. 

“Y’want a stick?” Amanda asked, holding a syrup-drenched stick out for the chicken.

“Ba-caw!”

“Fine.  More for me,” Amanda said with a shrug.  She slumped down in boredom, thinking she might be able to just go back to bed and sleep ‘til Sunday evening when her parents would return to pick her up.  She could just skip the whole weekend and not do one boring thing because in her dreams she could do whatever she wanted-

A quick shadow by the window caught Amanda’s attention.  She stuffed the last piece of French toast in her mouth and hopped down, jogging to the door as quickly as she could.  Quickly she flung open the old oak door to reveal her grandma, kind and patient as ever. 

“Have you finished eating, dear?” the woman asked, tapping the broom in her hand against the porch outside. 

“What was ‘at by the win’ow?” Amanda asked, her mouth still full. 

Her grandmother chuckled and stepped aside, gesturing for Amanda to come outside.  Hesitantly, the little girl peered out the door.  She looked around cautiously, expecting to see some huge gargoyle or swamp monster sitting on the picnic table in the front garden.  However, nothing was there.  Curiously, Amanda took a step across the threshold.  Her light-up sneakers glowed red and orange with each step, and she was sure that any vampire that possibly sat on the roof would’ve swooped down and snatched her up by now if they were there. 

So, what was going on?

“Granny?” Amanda turned around and crossed her arms.  “There’s nothing here!” she pouted.

“What were you expecting, dear?” her grandmother asked, amusement in her voice.  “Surely you’ve seen a witch fly on a broom by now, yes?”

Amanda’s eyes lit up and she tried so hard to hide the excitement on her face.  Her granny could fly a broom?!  So cool!  “Is ‘at what we’re doing today?” Amanda asked, practically buzzing with excitement.  Finally, something cool!   

“Follow me, dear,” her grandma said, motioning towards the woods around the side of the house.  Amanda skipped along, eventually jogging to catch up and grab her grandmother’s hand.  They walked and walked and _walked_ farther into the woods, so far that Amanda wanted to whine and complain.  Grumbling bubbled up in her throat, and she looked up at her grandmother with big puppy-dog eyes.  “Alright, Miss Impatient, look around.”

“It’s just a buncha trees,” Amanda mumbled.  She stuck her thumb in the corner of her mouth and looked up again, questioning look on her face.  “Trees and branches and bushes.”

“What do you think a broom is made of?”

Amanda wrinkled her nose and nodded.  This wasn’t gonna be a fun day, was it?

“Look around and find a big enough stick, one that speaks to you.  Come back to me with it when you find it.”  Amanda turned to question her grandmother, wondering how a _stick_ was going to speak to her, but when she looked where her grandma had just been standing, the woman was gone.

“Great…” Amanda groaned.  She tossed herself down on the dusty ground and dropped her chin into her palms.  “How’s a stick gonna talk to me, anyways?!  This is stupid…”  She just wanted to fly! 

After about ten minutes, Amanda realized that her granny wasn’t coming back for her any time soon, and that it would just be easiest to do what she was told even if it was the dumbest thing she ever heard.  So, Amanda stood up and grabbed a forked twig on the ground.  She took either end of the V and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply and letting it out as she leaned forward.  She caught herself falling and let that step propel her forward as she ran around, beeping like a radar going mad. 

“ _Beep, beep, beeeeep!_   Where’s my stick?!”  Amanda yelled as she ran and ran.  Just as she opened her eyes, she tripped over a big branch.  “Ow, mean branch!” she fussed, throwing a pebble at it.  “Why ya gotta be in the way like that?!”  She looked around for her twig, but it seemed to have disappeared into thin air.  Growling, Amanda jumped back up to her feet and fixed her overall’s strap over her shoulder.  “Fine!  You’re mine, now!” she shouted, snatching the offending branch up. 

It was a fairly thick branch, but not too thick that Amanda couldn’t get her tiny hands around it.  It stood to check-height with her, and Amanda took pride in the fact that she _was_ taller than this seemingly mean and nasty stick.  “Let’s get back to the house,” she said as she marched forward, heading back to her grandmother’s house. 

* * *

 

“Ah, you’re back!”

“Granny, what does this have to do with flying?” Amanda asked, a pout on her face.  Her feet were tired and a bruise was forming on her thigh where she’d fallen.  She just wanted to go lay down. 

“One of the first rules of flying is bonding with your broom.  The best way to do that is to make your broom, dear,” her grandmother explained.  Amanda groaned and tossed her back, following her granny when the woman gestured towards the front of the house.  “So, now that you have the stick of your broom, you need the bristles.”  There was a bag of straw on the porch as well as twine, and Amanda raised her eyebrow to her grandmother.  “Go on and take a handful of straw.”

Amanda shrugged and took a bunch of straw, laying it out on the ground.  She straightened it out and added more straw since she couldn’t grab nearly enough. 

“Now lay your branch over the straw in the middle.”

Amanda laid it in the middle both directions.  Her grandma handed her a piece of twine and showed her how to bunch up the straw around her broom, but Amanda knotted the twine with bunny-ears, looking more pleased with her handiwork than she meant to be.

“Now can I fly?” Amanda asked as they stood, her new broom held tightly in her hands. 

“Not quite.”  Amanda deflated immediately, and her grandmother chuckled.  “You still have more bonding to do; try sweeping off the porch.  Get all of those dead leaves off and knock down the cobwebs.”

“I thought cobwebs were witchy,” Amanda grumbled as she stomped up the steps and beat the sides of the house.

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

* * *

 

Amanda swept the porch, knocked down the cobwebs, swept the mudroom and kitchen, the living room, and used her broom to dust her room.  At that point Amanda decided that her granny just wanted her to _clean_ , and that wasn’t nice at all! 

“Granny, I just wanna _fly_!” Amanda whined, spinning around to meet her grandmother’s face.  “I don’t wanna clean or dust or nothin’, just fly!”

“Alright, alright, if you think you and your broom are ready…”

“Yes!” Amanda squealed, racing out the door past her grandmother.  When the woman stepped outside, she saw her granddaughter bouncing wildly on her broom, trying desperately to get it to stay in the air.

“Now, now, you’ll get nowhere that way…”

“What’s the spell?!  What’s the spell?!” Amanda demanded, jumping even more persistently.

“Calm down, calm down,” her grandma said with a giggle.  She held her own broom out in front of herself, breathing in deeply.  She sat down on the broom and looked to her granddaughter, who sat up straighter and stared forward with a concentrated look.  “Visualize yourself in the air, flying freely.  Think of something happy and kick up…” she said.  “Tia freyre!”

Just like that, her grandmother was in the air!  Amanda watched for a minute with an amazed look on her face, jaw hanging open.  The woman flew across the treetops so effortlessly, so carefree.  It excited Amanda more than anything else she’d been taught before, so she started to run. 

Amanda ran and jumped in the air, twirling as she did.  What was the spell, again?  Oh, yeah.  “Tia freyre!”  The broom jolted Amanda to stop, and she was confused at first, until they took off straight up in the air.  “Woah!”

“Amanda!”

“This is awesome!” Amanda squealed, hanging on for dear life as her broom dragged her around and twirled itself in the sky.  “Wheeeeee!”

Amanda was a blur in the sky, just a dot of denim and red visible.  Her grandmother took off after her, grabbing the broom at the top to make it stop.  She guided them down to the ground, and she half expected the excitement to make Amanda cry, now that she could collect herself.  In fact, she stood very ready to comfort her granddaughter if the tears started to well.

However, Amanda was one full of surprises.  “Again, again!” she giggled, stomping her feet.  Her sneakers’ lights added to the excitement, and it slightly scared her grandmother.  She was going to have a hard time keeping this girl on the ground, wasn’t she?

“Alright, but this time let’s try to do a few drills?”

Amanda didn’t care; she just wanted more time in the air.  She grabbed her broom from her grandmother and got a running start, shouting the spell again as she lifted off.

* * *

 

“Can I have this?” Amanda asked, tugging on her grandmother’s nightgown.  The woman looked down to see the spool of ribbon in Amanda’s hand.  The design on it was covered in foxes and green polka dots. 

“What on Earth do you need ribbon for?”

“My broom wants t’look fancier.”  Now, the woman knew this was a lie; there was no way for a five-year-old to speak to a broom as if it were a person.  But, she also knew that there was no harm in letting the child decorate her broom.  For all she knew, the poor thing could be covered in holographic stickers at this point, anyway.  As long as she was interested in something to do with magic, what was the harm?

As long as she was interested and _not going for a flight at 9 o’clock at night!_  

“Amanda Lynn O’Neill get in here right now!”

Surprisingly, the child had a very good witch laugh.  That didn’t mean she wasn’t grounded.

**Author's Note:**

> This was really fun to write!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @forget-diana


End file.
